Well the school holiday season is over! 2017 is gone and 2018 is here. During the break a number of our staff and students participated in different summer camps around the place. Check out these highlight packages from the South Queensland Conference Summer Camps.

https://www.facebook.com/sqconference/videos/1571924672876849/

https://www.facebook.com/sqconference/videos/1566874673381849/

https://www.facebook.com/sqconference/videos/1553231948079455/

These camps will be on again this year/next year so keep an eye out for information.

One is the Loneliest

The other day I was reminded of the band Three Dog Night’s hit song… “One is the Loneliest Number” …and I started thinking.

I feel that for blokes, one of our default settings is, “we don’t need help from anyone”. We prefer to work alone, make decisions by ourselves, work through our problems alone and receive credit for doing the things we accomplished alone. You see, doing “stuff” alone give us full control of what we are doing and it also doesn’t open us up to any vulnerability. The thing is that Jesus didn’t really fit the loner profile, especially when it came to serving others. When He was here on earth we read about Him being alone very few times. The majority of the time he was surrounded by people and that is still the way He operates and wants us to operate today. In the Gospel of Luke we find Jesus sending people to tell the world about Him.

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where He himself was about to go.” – Luke 10:1

Clearly pairs or groups are better than an individual for serving others.

There are many different reasons why this is the case. Matthew 18:20 notes the first of these.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

A pair or a group of people not just working together but doing life together has a larger impact than just one individual. When two or more people are joined together, who know one another, who pray together and pray for each other, then they are more protected than a person on their own. They can lean on each other through life’s ups and downs.

So if you consider doing stuff by yourself, take a moment, and think, “Might it be advantageous to partner up, join a community and do life together with others and with God?”

-Simon Hutton, Chaplain